Expectations are low heading into the 2025-26 season for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Their general manager is trying to balance a proper rebuild with his best player’s agent in his ear about competing. Not an easy balancing act.
As a result, the Penguins are likely going to miss the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year while also missing out on the lottery. They are on the lower end of mediocrity.
Here are some of my Penguins predictions for this year
Take the over
Currently, on Fanduel, the Penguins’ over/under on standings points is 74.5. I would hit the over on that. They aren’t trying to tank. They had 80 points last year with bad goaltending and a coach still leaning into underwhelming veteran players. Erik Karlsson, Bryan Rust, and Rickard Rakell are still on the roster, and so are Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. The depth players will be better than what the Penguins have had in the past few seasons, with younger and hungrier players playing for their NHL existence. A 74.5 over/under puts them at the third-worst team in the league.
Looking around the league, there aren’t as many powerhouse teams. In the Eastern Conference, Florida is going through it with Barkov lost for the season. Toronto lost Mitch Marner and did little to replace him. In the division, the Flyers, Islanders, and Blue Jackets are all wading with the Penguins. The Rangers are an incredibly volatile team at the moment and could potentially self-implode.
It just seems like 74.5 is really low for Pittsburgh.
Big year for Karlsson
I think Erik Karlsson has been a good player for the Penguins, even if it hasn’t led to anything meaningful for the team. He also hasn’t been the Norris-caliber player he was when the Penguins acquired him.
I think it has been one of those things where the player sees the writing on the wall with the team going nowhere and kind of goes through the motions. Things aren’t as detailed as they could be because there’s no severe consequence one way or the other.
Heading into the 2025-26 season, Karlsson has quite a bit to play for. It is an Olympic year and likely his last chance to play in this tournament. He has a Silver Medal to his name, but is still chasing Gold.
He is also effectively trying out for other contenders around the NHL. It is no secret that he is a prime candidate to be traded from the roster. For teams to want to acquire him he is going to have to show them he still has it and can be a difference maker.
Given the Olympics and the trade potential, I think this is going to drive Karlsson towards being the best version of himself since being moved to Pittsburgh.
Another point per game season
I think Sidney Crosby is going to add yet another consecutive year to his points per game streak. He, much like Karlsson, is also in an Olympic year, and Sid knows any team success he experiences this year is likely to come in February in Italy and not in Pittsburgh. This is going to keep him on his game, and if he’s on his game, the points will come.
It is likely Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell stick around long enough to help him out with getting those points. At worst, Crosby will have Ville Koivunen on the roster, who I think can process the game at the NHL level and work well in time and space with Crosby.
One up one down
I think Harrison Brunicke is going to end up staying with the big club this season. I think the team likes him quite a bit and I also think he has shown enough to stick around. He got sent back last year after a sparkling training camp, which was the right call. I’m not sure another year of junior is going to do anything for him. I think he’s up for good.
Ben Kindel also showed out in his Penguins debut this preseason. He has been awesome. He has gotten progressively better each day since prospect camp. Much like Brunicke, I do think the Penguins will send him back to juniors. Physically, I just don’t think he is there yet to deal with the day by day grind of the NHL. His hands and mind are good to go as far as I see, but he will need some more muscle to be an NHL regular.
The Penguins are also not exactly desperate for his services. This year is whatever and they can afford to let Kindel go back to juniors for another season. Ideally, it would be the AHL, but that pesky CHL transfer agreement has screwed up the logical path for a prospect, yet again
Two-headed monster
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin playing together at 5v5 really hasn’t been a regular occurrence the past 15 years. This was mostly because MIke Sullivan did not want to deploy them together in what I always viewed as uncreative and a blind spot for him. The tail end of the Bylsma years it was because of injury to both Sid and Geno keeping them apart. Here’s their time together each season since 2007-08.
This chart disappoints me quite a bit if I’m being honest. You see what Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have done with regular ice time together and then you see it has been ignored in Pittsburgh.
Last year was a huge spike in time together. It was the only year in the Mike Sullivan era that came close to proper 5v5 usage together. I think there is potential with Dan Muse and likely Rust/Rakell trades for us to see a 200-minute season for the first time since 2008-09.
We have already seen Dan Muse put the two together in the preseason at strategic times and I would expect to continue to see that in the regular season. These opportunities will add up over the course of the year and don’t even account for Muse playing them outright together on the same line, which is something they should toy with over the course of the year.
Perhaps this is wishful/selfish thinking by me, but I want what I want. Let’s see 200 5v5 minutes for the two-headed monster in 2025-26.
Jarry will not be in Pittsburgh for full year
I think the odds of Jarry playing their entire season in Pittsburgh are incredibly low. If he is playing well enough, he has the very real potential of being traded to another team. If the opposite happens then we know that Dubas and company are not shy at all to place him on the bus down in WB/S.
The appetite to keep giving Jarry NHL minutes as a Penguin are only going to decrease. He isn’t the goalie of the future, and he is also irrelevant to the now.
So those are a few things I think we’ll see play out over the course of this season. The season that begins today.
